Comfortable
by charley07
Summary: A songfic to John Mayer's "Comfortable." What Ezra goes through when Aria goes off to college in New York.


**So I'm still working on _Ghosts of Boyfriends Past_ but I had this strong desire today to pick four love songs that I really adore and write songfics for each of the main four girls. This one is for Aria/Ezra and it's an early song from John Mayer called "Comfortable," as the title of the piece suggests. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. It's sort of sad but ends well so I hope you like it. Let me know. This is the first songfic I've written in my long history of writing on this site. Thanks so much.**

**Disclaimer: I don't anything _PLL_-related or the John Mayer song.**

* * *

><p><em>I just remembered, that time at the market<br>snuck up behind me and jumped on my shopping cart  
>And rode down, aisle 5<br>you looked behind you to smile back at me  
>crashed into a rack full of magazines<br>they asked us if we could leave._

"Hey!"

Ezra laughed as Aria jumped out from behind him and held onto his shopping cart as he turned into aisle five of the supermarket to pick up things for dinner that night. "What are you doing, Miss Montgomery?"

"I was picking up some things with my mom and we saw you so I thought I'd come say hi," she replied. "I know I'm not supposed to know what you're cooking me tonight but I couldn't resist that face of yours." She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him.

Ezra, not paying attention to anything but his girlfriend of almost two years, wrecked into a metal stand near the beginning of the aisle, knocking dozens of magazines to the floor.

"Oops," Aria giggled, jumping down to start picking them up.

"Excuse me, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," a stock woman explained sternly, standing over them. "You're a distraction to the other customers."

Aria grabbed Ezra's hand and pulled him through the store, laughing all the way. "I guess I'll have to meet my mom at her car."

"Wait," he said, placing his hands on her waist to pull her close to him. "What about dinner?"

"Looks like another night of Rose of Sharon for us," she smirked, reaching up to kiss him.

"Sounds good to me," he murmured, never taking his lips away from hers.

_Can't remember, what went wrong last September  
>Though I'm sure that you'd remind me, if you had to<br>Our love was, comfortable and  
>so broken in<em>

"This isn't going to work anymore," Ezra said as he and Aria faced off in his apartment the night before she was due to leave for college in New York City. "We're going to be more than two hours away from each other and neither one of us should have to make that commute every weekend."

"I will!" Aria cried. "I don't care if I have to drive a thousand miles to see you. I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"I know that," he sighed, "but I want you to have a real college experience. I did and it was one of the best times of my life. I'm afraid that we're so used to being together that I'm holding you back from being a regular eighteen-year-old. It's not right, Aria."

Tears filled her eyes. "So what are you saying here, Ezra? You're too comfortable with me? I'm not exciting anymore? Fine." She picked up her leather jacket and put it on. "If this is what you want, I'll go. But don't call me. Don't contact me in any way because I will not be pulled around on a string by you anymore." She went for the door but turned back briefly. "I love you, Ezra." Without another word, she left, quietly shutting the door behind her as she did.

"I love you, too," he whispered.

_I sleep with this new girl I'm still getting used to  
>my friends all approve, say she's gonna be good for you<br>they throw me, high fives_

"Dude, it's been four months," Hardy said as he, Ezra, and Grant (another friend from college) sat in the Hollis Pub and Grille a couple nights before Christmas. "Aria isn't coming back and you've move on so stop moping. Casey is good for you. She's smart and hot. And as an added bonus, she was never one of your students."

Grant reached out to give Ezra the standard 'bro shake,' as Aria had always called it. "You definitely scored a keeper with her, man. Don't blow it."

"Right," Ezra muttered, nursing his beer. He knew his friends were right; Casey was great. She was a nurse at the local hospital and even though he'd expected her to just be a transition from Aria, they'd been together for almost three months and he liked her just fine. But there were nights—a lot of them if he was being honest—that he fell asleep thinking of Aria and not the girl lying next to him._  
><em>

_She says the bible is all that she reads  
>and prefers that I not use profanity<br>your mouth was, so dirty_

Casey looked up from her reading to see Ezra standing over her with a gift. "I thought we agreed we weren't going to exchange gifts until tomorrow?"

"I couldn't wait," he shrugged, sitting down next to her on his couch so she could open it. "It's one of my favorites so I hope you like it."

She unwrapped the present to reveal a hardback copy of Harper Lee's _To Kill a Mockingbird_. "Oh, Ezra, this is so sweet but I thought I told you? My Bible study class at church is only reading the Bible for the next six months. It's something Mrs. Ackard calls a 'literature cleanse' to remember that scripture is the true word of the Lord."

"Oh, shit," he breathed. "I completely forgot."

Casey made a face. "You shouldn't curse. It sounds archaic. You're not a cave man."

He said nothing as he stood and walked to his kitchen, remembering the constant flow of profanities that used to come from Aria's mouth. These were the moments he missed her most._  
><em>

_Life of the party  
>and she swears that she's artsy<br>but you could distinguish  
>Miles from Coltrane<em>

New Year's Eve came sooner than Ezra had expected. Hardy—as usual—was throwing his annual bash in Philadelphia and as it was already quarter to twelve, it was in full swing. Casey stood at the center of the room, commanding attention flawlessly. She was going on and on about the ballet she'd dragged him to several nights before, about the movement of the ballerinas and the beauty of the orchestra. Ezra wasn't into it. The ballet had never been his thing. He preferred quiet coffee shops and old bookstores.

The music changed to 'Now's the Time' and Casey gasped. "Oh, this is such a great John Coltrane song."

"It's Miles Davis," Ezra muttered under his breath. "Everyone knows that."

"Everyone?" Hardy questioned, stepping up beside him. "I didn't. I just put on some jazz CD I found."

"Aria knows," Ezra murmured. "She could distinguish between the two."

_Our love was, comfortable and  
>so broken in<br>she's perfect, so flawless  
>or so they say, say<br>_

"What I had with Aria was comfortable," Ezra said over after work with Hardy and Grant for Hardy's promotion. "It was easy and I never felt like I had to try so hard. With Casey, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells."

"You're just acclimating to someone new still," Grant reasoned. "You were with Aria for two years and that's a long time. I think you need to really let her go so you can have a future with Casey."

"Grant's right," Hardy nodded. "Casey is perfect for you. I know we've told you this a hundred times and I'm sure we sound like a broken record but you're blowing it and for what? An eighteen-year-old who probably hasn't thought about you at all since she got to NYU?"

Ezra looked away from them both. "You just don't get it."

"No, _you_ don't get it," Hardy corrected. "Casey is flawless and you're pushing her away. Stop blowing it, jackass. Aria isn't coming back for you."

_She thinks I can't see the smile that she's fakin'  
>and poses for pictures that aren't being taken<br>I loved you  
>grey sweat pants, no makeup, so perfect<em>

Ezra stared at the two photos in his hands. One was recent, of him and Casey at Grant's wedding in early March. She had a big smile on her face but he knew it was phony. He could see it in her eyes. She'd been pulling away since Valentine's Day and he'd been letting her. Their entire relationship had become a farce to show people; to make it look like they were happy but they weren't.

The second photo was older but he still kept it in his sock drawer. It was of him and Aria from the previous winter. They'd been stuck in his apartment one weekend due to a blizzard and she walked around the entire time in a pair of his old sweatpants with no makeup on. He knew it was a cliché to think that she looked so much better that way but it was true. It was natural and perfect, the way she was meant to be.

In that moment, he knew what had to be done.

_Our love was, comfortable and  
>so broken in<br>she's perfect, so flawless  
>I'm not impressed, I want you back.<em>

Aria was just finishing a paper for her creative writing class when a sharp knock on her dorm door caused her to jump. Her roommate was out at a poetry reading so she made her way to the door and pulled it back to reveal Ezra, looking as though he hadn't slept in weeks.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. "I told you I didn't want to see you."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I made a mistake. I never should've made that decision for you. I just, I was so afraid you'd come here and end up resenting me for keeping you from this great life experience that I panicked and pushed you away. It was stupid and I've regretted it every single day."

"I don't believe you," she whispered. "Hanna said she saw you holding hands and getting cozy with some blonde at the Apple Rose Grille on Valentine's Day."

"I tried to move on," he admitted, "so I started seeing Casey. She's twenty-four and she's a nurse at Rosewood Memorial but she's not you. I don't feel right when I'm with her. I just thought there was no way you were here pining for me so I figured I should move forward. I just…couldn't."

Aria stared at him. "So you're here to tell me that your new girlfriend is practically perfect in every way but you don't care?"

"Exactly," he confirmed, closing the space between them. "I'm not impressed."

"So now what?" she asked, aware of how very close he was.

"I want you back," he breathed, his lips only centimeters from hers.

Without saying another word, she kissed him and everything else—all the fighting and heartbreak—melted away.


End file.
